38 October 2014
An Insight Into Green Buildings
The author expounds on how good sustainable design offers economic,
environmental and societal benefits. The article discusses the evolution
of TERI's green building rating system GRIHA (Green Rating for
Integrated Habitat Assessment) and its substantial contribution to
measuring the “greenness” of a building in India.
Green Building
39October 2014
Introduction
The tremendous growth in economic activity across
the globe is placing pressure on natural and
environmental resources. There is increasing evidence
that human activities are causing irreversible damage
to the global environment, impact on the quality of life
of future generations. The rising concern for the
environment is driving thinkers to seek sustainable
solutions.
The real estate industry is a significant contributor to
global warming due to the extensive emissions of
greenhouse gases (GHGs) from the energy use in
buildings. In some countries, the built environment
accounts for about 40% of the energy used. Therefore,
there is an imperative for the industry to develop
sustainable building technologies and green buildings.
The real estate industry is one the major energy
consumers and GHG emitters. Hence, real estate
activity in India has a significant impact on the
environment and resources. This indicates that there is
a real opportunity to develop green buildings in the
country.
However, developers face a major challenge in the
development of green buildings as in some cases this
increases construction costs. Developers find it difficult
to opt for green buildings due to price constraints
difficulty in sourcing green building materials,
technologies and service providers or facilitators in
India.
Growing human activity has increased the concern for
sustainability even more in recent times. Sustainability
in the real estate context is not only limited to energy
conservation, but also includes resource usage, impact
on the neighbouring environment and working
conditions for tenants. This concern has led to the
development of green buildings. The green building
concept broadly integrates many interests and
aspects of sustainability emphasising reduction of
environmental impacts through a holistic approach to
land and building uses and construction strategies.
A green building uses less energy, water and natural
resources than a conventional building. It also creates
less waste and provides a healthier living environment
40 October 2014
for people living inside it compared to a conventional
building. Green buildings incorporate several
sustainable features such as efficient use of water,
energy-efficient and eco-friendly environment, use of
renewable energy and recycled/recyclable materials,
effective use of landscapes, effective control and
building management systems and improved indoor
quality for health and comfort.
The overall benefits of green buildings mostly depend
on the extent to which the sustainable features are
addressed during the initial planning and design. A
green building is most likely to succeed in its objective
if sustainable features are envisioned and incorporated
right at the design stage. The design has to take into
consideration the entire supply chain—from material
sourcing, energy modelling, resource reuse, civic
amenities and waste disposal to tenant education.
GRIHA Rating System
TERI's green building rating system GRIHA (Green
Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment) has been
developed as an instrumental tool to evaluate and
rate the environmental performance of a building.
GRIHA is an evaluation tool to help design, build,
operate, and maintain a resource-efficient built
environment. It evaluates the environmental
performance of a building holistically over its entire life
cycle, thereby providing a definitive standard for what
constitutes a “green building”.
It has a few variants, like SVAGRIHA and GRIHA LD(for
large developments),which makes GRIHA applicable
to all buildings, irrespective of their areas.
SVAGRIHA is a rating system for small homes, offices
and commercial buildings with built-up area of less
than 2500 square meters. On the other hand, GRIHA LD
is a rating system for planning green large
developments like green campuses, townships and
special economic zones.
Green Building- Myths And Challenges
There are various myths regarding the green building
implementation. One example is the myth that
sustainability costs more, which ignores recent research
as well as the reality that for any society to thrive and
prosper, it must seek to create a healthy balance
between its environmental, social, and economic
dimensions as sustainability is not just about building
green but building a healthy community and sustaining
a quality of life.
Although green building has made tremendous strides
in the past few years, there remain many who still are
unconvinced of its benefits due to numerous myths
and misconceptions floating around the main stream
construction.
l Green buildings often lack the aesthetic quality
of conventional buildings
l Green building products are often difficult to
find
l Green building products do not work as well as
the traditional ones
l Building green is too difficult and complicated
l It is difficult or not possible to convert existing
conventional buildings into energy efficient
buildings
In reality, it is proven that all these myths are the
misconceptions of the people, all it needs it better
implementation and educating the people about the
concepts and contexts of building green.
GRIHA has worked with government construction
departments such as Central Public Works Department
(CPWD) and has revised their schedules and
specifications to adhere to GRIHA requirements, with
particular emphasis on Energy Conservation Building
Code (ECBC).
41October 2014
CASE STUDIES
Here are a few green building case studies where
strategies used have helped achieve significant
energy savings and resource optimisation.
IOCL DO Office Building, Indore: Passive
Architecture Design
This Indian Oil Corporation building makes use of
passive architectural design. Incorporation of
passive architectural techniques in a building
design helps to minimise the load on conventional
systems such as heating, cooling, ventilation and
lighting. The building is designed in a way that it
reduces direct heat gain, while maximising daylight
penetration. Over 82% of total area falls under the
day lit zone. 2kWP solar photovoltaic panels have
been installed to meet the energy requirements.
Building envelope has been optimised through
selection of appropriate wall and roof construction
to increase the thermal efficiency.Over 71% of the
total open area on site is soft paved and shaded.
Turf pavers have been used that allows vegetation
growth and penetration of water.
This is a 5 star SVAGRIHA rated project.
Govardhan Eco Village: Soil Biotechnology Design
A green sewage management technology called
Soil Biotechnology has been used to, which helps in
recovering about 95% of the sewage water and
reusing it for landscaping, etc.
It is an attempt towards water conservation and
preventing water pollution. This system consists of an
impervious containment and incorporates soil
formulated granular filter media, select culture of
macro organisms such as earthworms and plants.
Combined grey and black water from the cottages
is collected and transported via underground
sewage network to a central location.
The process by design integrates with the natural
bio-geochemical cycles of nature. Purification
takes place by absorption, filtration and biological
reaction. The process operates in aerobic mode,
thus eliminating the possibility of foul odour.
The processed water can be reused for gardening,
agriculture and supporting marine life.
This project has achieved a 5-star GRIHA rating.
Ms Anshula A Kumar is working as a Project Officer for ADaRSH (Association for Development and Research
of Sustainable Habitats), Sustainable Habitat Division, TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute).
She holds masters degree in Design Management and is working as part of the 'communication and brand
management' team.
About Author
Conclusion
The growing crisis has created the need to adopt the
concept of sustainability. Real estate activity, being
one of the significant contributors to energy
consumption and usage of resources, is working
towards the development of green buildings to reduce
energy consumption and the environmental impact.
The key challenges for the development of green
buildings in India are mostly in the lines of awareness
on the benefits of green buildings, materials and
technology. GRIHA is working towards addressing
these challenges to enable developers to operate with
ease.